This undermines DeSantis' central argument around electability. His pitch to Republican voters is he is Trump (culture war fighter, grievance based politics, etc), but smarter and more professional. He has the same goals as Trump, but he is drama free and a savvy operator who will actually get things done, unlike Trump who couldn't focus or stay out of scandal long enough to accomplish things. DeSantis doing massive campaign staff layoffs and an overall "reset" (2? 3? months since officially launching) demonstrates that he is not as savvy as he'd have you believe. How can he run the government and "stop woke" or whatever, if he can't even run a campaign? How can he manage the county's budget, if he can't manage his own?
DeSantis is broke. The quarterly FCC filings show that he has spent basically all the money he has raised since starting his campaign. He's got basically no cash on hand, and has been relying more and more on his outside PAC to do the basic campaign type things, like organizing events. More importantly, over a third of the money he raised was from donors who maxed out their contributions, meaning they cannot give him any more cash during the primary. The people who can give more money are questioning whether they should given his sinking poll numbers and are actively looking for other horses to back. Basically, DeSantis has got no money and few people left to raise more money from. And there is only so much he can rely on his PAC for given laws about coordination and so forth.
My prediction is if DeSantis doesn't put on a big show at the debate next month, really get some viral zingers in there, he's going to continue to deflate until his campaign enters zombie mode and he ends up in fourth place in Iowa.
On the other hand, it sucks that in order to even be in the conversation for any public office you need massive amounts of money that can only realistically be provided by selling yourself out. There are a few exceptions, sure, but by and large our leaders are chosen by ability to drum up donations instead of things like wisdom, judgment, and leadership.
Its true based on his FCC filings. They want a fascist in office, yes. But that fascist has to actually win the election, and DeSantis has been blowing through money and his poll numbers have been sinking since he entered the race. The more republican primary voters learn about and are exposed to him, the less they like him. The donor class is smart enough not to give into the sunk cost fallacy and are realizing DeSantis is a loser, which means they're looking for a different fascist that can actually win a primary and election.
I love watching this guy shit in his mess kit. As a citizen of Florida, I can only hope that his idiotic anti-wokeness culture wars wake up enough normally right-leaning voters to at least tilt them a little bit towards the center.
I’m sure certain billionaires would find chump change of a few billion dollars laying under their mattress for DeathSantis to continue his fascist campaign